Fairy Tales
by jj-chan
Summary: After everything, Ashitaka reflects on what will happen between him and San. Short ficlet written for a friend. Please read and review!


For **yuya hime**, because I promised. I did try to make it good. A little bit. At least it's _kinda_ happier than most of my other fics which focus on the same theme. I think.

I don't own Mononoke Hime, Studio Ghibli, or this computer I'm typing on.

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**Fairy Tales**

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If you told Ashitaka about fairy tales – about Snow White and Rose Red and the Little Cinder Girl – and then asked him if he'd believe in them, he'd probably say no.

He won't believe in the happily ever after, when it's all over. That'd because he is deeply grounded in reality, despite (or should I say _because of_) all that's happened. Because he's been there, done that, and it didn't end happily ever after at all.

The new Iron Town is thriving. It seems like past mistakes aren't being repeated, at least not on the same scale as before. It seems like the village had learned.

The new forest is thriving too. The old magic of the sacred glade; the greatness of the old Gods and Demons; the Forest Spirit – those weren't ever going to come back, and San had to accept that sooner or later, but new foliage is flourishing, and the forest is growing back.

It took hard work, but everything is going to be all right.

All right, except maybe San and himself.

Their romance (although Ashitaka would politely comment on how he disliked that word) isn't going to make it, not in the long run.

Because he is himself.

Because San is San.

Because he is human, and San isn't, not anymore.

Because all they have are stolen moments, in between restoring the forest and helping the new Iron Town, in between watching over this fragile new forest and making a home with the people of the village.

Just those not-too-often visits, when he can't bear to be away from her any longer and rides Yakkul towards her – _their _– cave (but these are getting longer in between, as the elk is not getting any younger), when she can stomach the stench and sight of humans (she has not forgiven the rest of them, not yet, perhaps not ever) because she misses him too much.

Ashitaka watches her, sometimes, and thinks about how wonderful, how beautiful she is. How different they are: they look at the same panorama and not see the same things.

Sometimes she thinks of the forest and what she has lost, and contemplates the future with _that look_ on her face, so wise and removed, and Ashitaka feels how out of touch with nature he really is, how humans have forgotten so much with their logic and new technology that Eboshi embraces.

Sometimes she is a child, so unreasonable and immature and _wild_, and he sees how innocent she is, how she can never really fit in with society, and it's too late when he remembers she doesn't want to, anyway.

She would suffocate and resent it, and be corrupted as even the purest of humans are. And everything that made her San would be gone.

He thinks about joining her in the forest (after all, doesn't he care, respect, and revere it, too; doesn't it recognize him as an ally?), abandoning humanity for love, and realizes that he still wouldn't be accepted, that he would suffocate and die the way San would in his world.

What will happen to them, as the years pass by?

San always pulls him out of these moods, sensing when he is too reflective for his own good, and invites him for a swim or some other excursion, and he always consents, joining her for a dip in the stream or such.

Beside her, but never really _with_ her.

But he thinks, it's going to be all right, anyway. Not like in fairy tales (assuming you'd told him about them in the first place), but good enough for him, for now. This is fine.

And he sees as San laughs in delight at the white powdery snow (even as she shivers in the cold), as she frolics in the sweet - scented dryness of the autumn leaves, as she gazes in wonder at the slow awakening of life come spring, as she extends her hand to him in invitation as summer goes by.

As she smiles at him with love shining through her eyes.

And he thinks, _no_, it's not fine after all. It is not perfect like in those strange fairy tales, but it is much, much more than just fine.

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**And So It Goes**

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Fifteen minute drabble (twenty if you include the spell-check), hope you're happy, Lar. Everyone, please review! 


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